http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
LET'S SEE if we've got this straight:

An advisory committee to the
U.S. Food and Drug
Administration actually considered
whether to change federal
regulations to allow homosexual
and bisexual men to donate blood
to blood banks, even though
homosexual and bisexual men
make up the majority of
Americans infected with HIV, the
virus which causes AIDS. Italics
definitely mine.

Sanity prevailed on the
committee, but only by a single
vote. There's no medical reason to make such a radical and
medically risky change, since there's no shortage of blood
acute enough to justify the increased risk of spreading AIDS.

But election-year politics is at stake, and the FDA, an
agency presided over by Welfare Secretary Donna Shalala,
still must make a final decision.

Gay-pride activists argue that to continue the current
practice of shunning blood suspected of HIV-contamination
"discriminates" against homosexual and bisexual men. The
American Red Cross, which collects more blood than any
other organization, thinks such a change would be looney,
though Red Cross spokesmen naturally wouldn't say it quite
that way.

Since the feelings of some homosexuals are hurt, it's
better, or at least more politic in the current climate, to risk
spreading AIDS to innocent men, women and children —
and to uninfected homosexual men — than to risk hurting the
feelings of an important Democratic constituency.

Homosexual men are not the only prospective donors
who are prohibited from giving (or selling) blood. Druggies
who pop an intravenous fix, and even those who used to do
that but no longer do, are shunned, too. So are hemophiliacs
who have used clotting concentrates made from blood. So is
anyone who has lived in or visited anyone in Nigeria,
Cameroon and six other sub-Saharan African nations. But
nobody has so far suggested relaxing the ban on their blood.
We may have a serious civil-rights violation here. Hate crime,
anyone?

The blood banks promise to take certain precautions, of
course. Such homosexual donors would have to say they
have not had sexual relations with other men for at least a
year, and since everyone knows that nobody ever lies about
sex, that presumably should satisfy the FDA and the blood
banks.

"We think this is fair, since there are new tests that detect
infectious diseases earlier," says a spokesman for the blood
banks. One test in routine use at blood banks today can
detect the presence of HIV 16 days after infection. Another
test already in use at some blood banks can detect HIV's
genetic material 8 to 12 days after infection. "Our highest
priority is to enhance the safety and availability of blood," she
says. "We believe this change would not compromise that."
Well, not unless you're luckless enough to get the blood of an
infected homosexual who donated blood within that 8-, 12-
or 16-day window before the tests could detect it. If that
happens, well, shut up and remember that life is unfair.

Many doctors, who have responsibilities to specific
patients, don't trust the blood supply now. You could ask a
candidate for surgery who has been urged to stockpile his or
her own blood in advance of the cut.

"Some of the questions they ask are fairly blunt," one such
surgical candidate says. "What kind of sexual activity I've had
in the past few months, even whether I had sold or bought
sex. I felt sorry for the nurse asking me the questions, having
to treat me as if I might have been a part-time hooker."

Mark Leno, a county supervisor in San Francisco,
complains that the current policy of caution is bad because it
focuses on homosexual men, who are most likely to be
infected with HIV, and doesn't take into account
heterosexuals, who are not likely to be infected with HIV.

"There continues to be a lot of misunderstanding and
concern on the public's part," he told the San Francisco
Chronicle. "The safety of the public blood supply is extremely
important." Just not as important as the self-esteem of his
constituents.

Mr. Leno is wrong. There's very little misunderstanding on
the public's part. The public, despite the earnest exertions and
exhortations of the homosexual lobby and its eager sopranos
and contraltos in the media chorus, understand that AIDS is
almost altogether a disease of homosexuals and druggies, and
most of the so-called heterosexual-AIDS sufferers are
women who, for miserable reasons of their own, live with
infected druggies and are on the receiving end of love where
most of us sit down. Two decades of frantic propaganda to
persuade everyone otherwise has not worked, and won't
work, because the hard facts speak in such loud, clear
voice.

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